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Posted on 04/04/2010 6:51:11 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
An article by a conservative named Cliff Kincaid, who serves as editor of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report, provides a perfect example of how different libertarians are from conservatives and, well, for that matter, how there ain't a dime's worth of difference, when it comes to individual freedom, between conservatives and liberals.
The article concerns the drug war and is entitled, "Dopey Conservatives for Dope." Ardently defending the continuation of the drug war, despite some 35 years of manifest failure, Kincaid takes fellow conservatives to task who are finally joining libertarians in calling for an end to the drug war. He specifically mentions columnist Steve Chapman, whose article "In the Drug War, Drugs are Winning," which was posted on the website of the conservative website Townhall.com, was apparently what set Kincaid off.
Chapman made the point that it is the illegality of drugs that has produced the drug gangs and cartels, along with all the violence that has come with them. The reason that such gangs and cartels fear legalization is that they know that legalization would put them out of business immediately.
Consider alcohol. Today, there are thousands of liquor suppliers selling alcohol to consumers notwithstanding the fact that liquor might be considered harmful to people. They have aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns and are doing their best to maximize profits by providing a product that consumers wish to buy. Their competitive efforts to expand market share are entirely peaceful.
Now, suppose liquor production or distribution was made a federal felony offense, just like drug production or distribution. At that point, all the established liquor businesses would go out of business.
However, prohibition wouldn't mean that liquor would cease being produced or distributed. It would simply mean that a new type of supplier would immediately enter the black (i.e., illegal) market to fill the void. Those suppliers would be similar in nature to the current suppliers in the drug business or, say, Al Capone -- that is, unsavory people who have no reservations about resorting to violence, such as murdering competitors and killing law-enforcement officers, to expand market share.
At that point, the only way to put these Al Capone-type of people out of business would be by legalizing booze. Once prohibition of alcohol was ended, the violent liquor gangs would immediately go out of business and legitimate businesses would return to the liquor market. The same holds true for drug prohibition.
The big objection to the drug war, however, is not its manifest failure and destructiveness but rather its fundamental assault on individual freedom. If a person isn't free to ingest any substance he wants, then how can he possibly be considered free?
Yet, for decades Kincaid and most other conservatives and most liberals have taken the audacious position that the state should wield the power to punish a person for doing bad things to himself. In fact, the drug war reflects perfectly the nanny-state mindset that has long afflicted both conservatives and liberals. They feel that the state should be a nanny for American adults, treating them like little children, sending them to their jail cell when they put bad things in their mouths.
Kincaid justifies his statism by saying that drugs are bad for people. Even if that's true -- and people should be free to decide that for themselves, as they do with liquor -- so what? Why should that be any business of the state? If I wish to do bad things to myself, why should the likes of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, and John McCain wield the power to put me into jail for that?
Quite simply, Kincaid: It ain't any of your business or anyone else's business what I ingest, whether it's booze, drugs, candy, or anything else. I am not a drone in your collective bee hive. I am an individual with the natural, God-given right to live my life any way I choose, so long as my conduct doesn't involve the initiation of force against others.
For decades, conservatives and liberals have been using the drug war as an excuse to assault freedom, free enterprise, privacy, private property, civil liberties, and the Constitution. They have brought nothing but death, violence, destruction, and misery with their 35-year old failed war on drugs. There would be no better place to start dismantling the statism that afflicts our land than by ending the drug war.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Which sounds fine and dandy until you have to deal personally with a crackhead or a meth-head. I think pot should be decriminaized. But crack and meth and other hard drugs should carry some kind of legal sanction to apply against those who do cross a line.
The only place for the fed in the “drug war” is at the border. Drug policy is a states’ rights issue. Let the voters in each state decide.
There has never been a “Drug War”. If there had been, the borders would have been closed and the supply coming in reduced to the point where street drugs would have increaed exponentially in cost to the point that use would be insignificant.
Only a pothead would be incapable of recognizing this.
That said, the usual dictatorial class of government beurocrats have used drug laws as an excuse to form quasi military units to storm into the homes of the citizenry, but you relly have to have zero knowledge of human history to claim they would not have simply used a different strawman to accomplish this had they not used drug laws.
Come to think of it, they did. The circumvention of the courts through gamewardens precedes usurpations through drug laws.
If the little stoners here can prove that hadn’t really happened and it all started with drug laws, I will quit ridiculing them as much.
Okay, Will it work this way as well?
“Abuse all the children you want, since you are free to be a pedophile, but don’t complain when the other folks stone you in the town square for your harm to thier innocent children”. Sounds good huh?
Best;
I suppose it is quite possible to classify any crime as “products and services”.
If drugs, why not prostitution, or pornography or bestiality or what ever. After that, why not rape. Hey it’s only a disagreement over price after all.” ... or why not murder ... it is called a “contract”.
I’m being sarcastic but the point is, without laws based on morals... laws intended to prevent the degradation of the society into brutish anarchy, without those markers of acceptability, then first the family disintegrates, then when all bonds of fellowship are broken, we are little more than animals. Each scrapping and fighting to get by.
I strive to the sublime, not the profane.
I believe my society should do the same.
One could and many did make the same arguments about alcohol and we found out that the cure was much worse than the disease. Prohibition of alcohol was no more successful than prohibition of other drugs, some of which are probably far more benign, e.g., marijuania. And, no, I do not.
Because they believe they are right and want people to think as they do? Or because they do not believe people should be able to make their own lifestyle choices?
And in the case of the poverty programs there is a huge number of bureaucrats,lawyers,poverty pimps ,and their clients who all depend on the governments continuing to forcibly confiscate the wealth of the productive members of society.
Prohibition of alcohol was a failure that the people and government eventually recognized and mostly repealed.It is long past time the same was done for the War on Drugs AND the War on Poverty.Truthfully all these are more about government controlling people than government helping people.
Rape and murder involve coercion. It is within the legitimate purview of government to prevent coercion.
What aboout those people that partake in drugs, but don’t cause any suffering?
Shaking down teachers for their paychecks and threatening to kill school children don’t have a lot to do with drugs as far as I can see.
Prohibition of drugs has worked out no better than prohibition of alcohol. A lot of people who are worried about legalization are afraid of what the coloreds will get up to.
You should try the Drambuie ones sometime. Oh man...
As a small business owner would I then be allowed to fire an employee for coming to work late after a coke binge or for returning from lunch stoned on pot brownies? No harm was inflicted on me, right?
Nope. NLRB, EEOC, unions, and whoever else could stick their weenie into the pot would fight my right to a productive business atmosphere. It'll be argued that they have "a disease" and not only do I have to allow them time off for rehab, if they choose it at all, after all they have a "right" to suck blow up their snoot, I have to pay for it and the on site counsellors to help them manage their dependency.
I'm all for live and let live, but if drugs are legalized a lot of other "nanny state" laws will have to be changed to satisfy the peripheral effects of a doped up population.
I always thought liberals opposed the war on drugs because it led to a lot of moral relativism, navel gazing and a "tuned out" population that was too busy chasing imaginary bunnies around the apartment and not paying attention to all the other things government does.
Drug users could end the “drug war” today...if they wanted to.
do you favor banning liquor?
So could the people that started it, I would think.
Producing statistics is not necessary to show the validity of my statement, since all I need to produce is one example to show that not everyone who consumes alcohol or imbibes a controlled substance must (necessarily) be causing harm to society.
I certainly understand your perspective and I agree on the point that many behaviors are potentially injurious to others, but drving a car is not the same as driving one under the influence of any state altering substance.
While I will agree with you that driving a car on a public road while under the influence, I don't think that discrete consumption in reasonable, non-excessive quantities on one's own private property poses any danger to anyone.
What constitutes "reasonable" and "non-excessive" is subjective, however.
In any regard, I can agree that yes, generally, most controlled substances now subject to prohibition are dangerous, but I don't believe that it's the Government's proper role to make decisions for individuals with regard to their consumption, just as it's not the Government's proper role to decide whether someone must purchase health insurance. It is a matter of personal responsibility and a function of a proper upbringing, none of which can be induced by mere legislation.
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